Russia angry at US war plan for Georgia

Security officials from the post-Soviet state of Georgia are expected for talks in London and Washington amid growing signs that American and British forces are gearing up to attack suspected Islamist terrorists holed up in the north of the country, near the Russian border.

But the state department has signalled that Russia is not being considered a participant in the US plans.

Moscow believes it is being marginalised despite its intense pressure on Georgia to allow it to bomb Chechen separatist fighters sheltering in the region. Russia's domestic intelligence chief, Nikolai Patrushev, made a sudden visit to Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, yesterday to discuss a security situation which shows every sign of turning critical.

"We just can't put up with this," said Sergei Ivanov, the Russian defence minister, demanding that Georgia act "promptly and effectively" to establish control over a region he described as a "mini-Chechnya or mini-Afghanistan".

Moscow and Washington say the Pankisi gorge region, by the mountainous border with Chechnya, has been infiltrated by al-Qaida or Taliban suspects fleeing Afghanistan.

Last week a senior American diplomat in Tbilisi said the US planned to train Georgian counter-terrorist forces, and Moscow's Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported that a small group of US military advisers had arrived in the capital on Tuesday.

President Eduard Shevardnadze's government, which had previously dismissed Moscow's claims that the gorge was a lawless stronghold of Chechen militants and foreign Islamists, has angered Russia by turning to the west .

Russia's hardline chief of staff, General Anatoly Kvashnin, insisted yesterday: "Russia and Georgia should jointly eradicate this terrorist centre in the Pankisi gorge."

Rejecting Russian military intervention, Mr Shevardnadze said this week that he was open to dialogue on "future joint action with US special forces in the Pankisi gorge". Valery Khaburdzania, the Georgian state security chief, is expected in London and Washington early next month.

Any US military role would entail intervention directly on Russia's southern border and might also be construed in Moscow as US interference in the Chechnya war.

Yesterday, a group of retired Russian army generals, including a former defence minister, branded Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, a western lackey and traitor for cooperating with Washington in its war in Afghanistan..

"With your [Putin's] blessing, the United States has received military bases in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and, maybe, Kazakhstan," they declared in a published broadside at the Kremlin. "In the long run, these bases are for dealing a strike on Russia, not Bin Laden. We would not be surprised if tomorrow they call you the best American, European or Nato official."